Lack of Diverse Imagination

Last night I got all screechy hysterical on Twitter over what was promised to be a “sneak peek” of Divergent. Basically I was one step away from calling Lainey to hold my hand while we watched.

Bah.

This single photo is not a sneak peek. It’s barely an insight. In fact, it looks just exactly what I would picture, because it’s a nonevent. If anyone were standing against a wall with knives being thrown at them, that’s what it would look like. Light enough so you can see the knives. Gotta be a wood backboard, or something the knives will stick in. Fine. It’s a non story.

But that does not keep the crazies from raging. Her hair – it’s not the right shade of blonde, maybe not blonde at all. Then a side argument: Is it a “bad” haircolour, or is it the light? And where are the blue eyes that we were(n’t) promised? HOW CAN THIS BE TRIS?

Why is it that people get so attached to the physical where a book character is concerned? “Her hair isn’t CORN BLONDE.” So? Does that really, really interrupt your enjoyment of the story? Is it her hair that’s going to allow her or prevent her to be Dauntless? Do people really lack this much imagination?

No, she’s not necessarily the Tris I pictured, either. But the Tris I pictured spends most of the book in her own head. That’s the point. That’s who I want to get to know. If she’s 5 ft 5 instead of 5 ft 2, I think I can learn to deal. She’ll still feel sufficiently weak or small or inexperienced if she believes she is. Because that’s what acting is, and is for. People who are not living in a dystopian future Chicago make you believe that in fact they are.

Actors are gorgeous and the camera loves them, but they’re also chameleons. WE can at least wait until the trailer (WHEN?) to figure out whether the hair is really going to get in her way…right?